by Kamran Pasha
Hollywood filmmaker, author of "Shadow of the Swords" and "Mother of the
Believers

I am not a vegetarian or a vegan. But like most people of conscience, I was
sickened and horrified to see the recent video taken by animal rights activists
of
baby chicks being ground alive at an egg hatchery. Seeing such cruel and
heartless treatment of living beings has undoubtedly caused some of us
carnivores to at least take a moment to consider the dark truths behind how
animals are processed for food in the modern world.

Indeed, human beings throughout history have questioned the morality of animal
slaughter, and religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism have long been
the home for those who believe that killing and consuming sentient animals is
barbaric. Religious vegetarianism is commonplace in the East, but is not
considered mainstream in most Western faith communities.

And yet, after lengthy research into the historical record, I have become
convinced that Jesus Christ himself was in all likelihood a vegetarian, and that
vegetarianism was probably a central tenet of the early Christian community
founded by his disciples. In fact, there is evidence that Christ's opposition to
animal sacrifice at the Jewish Temple may have been the triggering event that
led to the Crucifixion.

Yes, I know. This sounds preposterous. But stay with me, and let me present the
historical evidence before you make a final judgment.

Christian and Muslim views of Jesus

Before I begin, let me state that I am a Muslim, so already my views on Jesus
are not the same as those of my Christian brothers and sisters. Jesus is a
pivotal figure in both Christianity and Islam, and both religions consider
themselves to contain the true teachings of Christ. The primary differences
between the two faiths arise over his identity and message.

For Christians, Jesus is a divine being, the Son of God, who took human form in
order to experience martyrdom, death and resurrection as part of God's plan for
redemption. For Christians, Christ's death on the cross is an act of cosmic
blood sacrifice -- he took upon himself the sins of mankind, and those who
believe in him are cleansed of their sins through vicarious atonement. Salvation
comes through faith in Christ's redemptive sacrifice.

For Muslims, Jesus was a human being, a prophet and a teacher, who was sent by
God to guide humanity. Muslims believe that Jesus never wanted to be worshipped
as a deity, and that his message was very simple: "Worship God, your Lord and
mine, and follow my example." There is no doctrine of vicarious atonement in
Islam, as Muslims believe Jesus and all of God's messengers taught individual
moral responsibility. Muslim belief is that the central teachings of
Christianity -- the divinity of Christ and his death as a sacrificial atonement
-- are later pagan inventions that Jesus himself would have rejected. Salvation
for Muslims comes through what they consider the central teachings of Jesus and
all prophets -- belief in One God and living an ethical life.

Discussions of the differences in Christian and Muslim approaches to Jesus can
and do fill volumes, and I can only scratch the surface of this theological
controversy here. But I state these points above as a disclaimer. As a Muslim,
my personal views of Jesus are already different from those of my Christian
neighbors. As a result, I am more likely to question the official Church stance
on Christ's life and teachings than those who accept the Christian vision. I
read early Church histories with a different attitude than a believing Christian
would, and I am more likely to give credence to historical accounts that are
today deemed heretical by the Church.

And this skeptical approach toward the official version of Christian history has
led me to a deep personal conviction -- based on the historical sources -- that
Christ's message was not just about loving your fellow human beings, but that he
actually was deeply concerned that his followers show compassion toward animals.

I came to this conclusion while researching my next book, a novel on the birth
of Christianity. My first novel,
Mother of the Believers, about the birth of Islam from the perspective of
Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha, has been a success. I wanted to follow up with a
similar book about Jesus based on the early historical sources. I decided to set
aside my own pre-conceived beliefs about Jesus as a Muslim and treat the sources
with objectivity. I wanted to present Jesus as early Christians likely saw him,
even if that understanding was different from my own faith.

And in the process of examining the New Testament and early historical sources
about Jesus, I became shocked to learn that perhaps neither Christians nor
Muslims today truly understand what Jesus was about. The evidence of religious
vegetarianism in the early Christian community was so overwhelming that I was
forced to consider why this was not one of the issues that divide Christians and
Muslims in theology. Most Christians and most Muslims are not vegetarian and
most people in both faiths would be startled by the suggestion that Jesus and
the early Christians were staunch vegetarians.

Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity: James versus Paul

In order to get to the point that Jesus appears to have been a vegetarian
according to early Christian sources, I must first give a basic explanation of
the historical process by which the religious movement we now call Christianity
came together. There are many sources for the following historical
interpretation, but the most readable and well argued is by Prof. Barrie Wilson,
a respected biblical scholar at York University in Toronto. His work
How Jesus Became Christian provides a detailed examination of the evolution
of Christian thought that I summarize below.

My investigation into the life of Jesus began by examining the first theological
dispute that arose in the Christian community after the earthly mission of
Jesus. Interestingly, there is little controversy over how Jesus lived. Most
scholars, both secular and Christian, would likely accept the notion that Jesus
in his lifetime was a practicing Jew, one who adhered to the Torah, the Law of
Moses, even if he had some different interpretations of specific legal points
than other Jewish teachers. That meant that Jesus was circumcised, prayed
ritually every day according to ancient Jewish practices, worshipped at the
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, observed the Sabbath and major Jewish festivals such
as Passover and Yom Kippur, and adhered to kosher laws regarding which foods
were acceptable and which weren't (Jesus would not have eaten pork, for
example).
This last point was not controversial in his lifetime, but became a major issue
later when an increasing number of Gentiles (who had no such food restrictions)
began to convert to Christianity. But during his lifetime, and for several years
afterward, the followers of Jesus did not see themselves as creating a new
religion. They were Jews who believed that Jesus was their teacher and leader,
and the Acts of the Apostles discusses how the early Christians continued to
worship at the Jewish Temple like other Jews, apparently unaware of the doctrine
that Christ's death and resurrection removed the need to observe these ritual
Jewish practices. This early "Jewish Christian" community was led by James the
Just, identified in the New Testament as the younger brother of Jesus, and
supported by well-known disciples like Peter and John.

According to contemporary historian Flavius Josephus, James the Just was highly
respected by the Jewish community of Jerusalem for his righteousness and
adherence to the Law of Moses. And yet modern Christians do not consider
adherence to the Mosaic Law necessary or perhaps even virtuous. In fact most
Christians today would be hard-pressed to name a handful of the 613 commandments
that form the backbone of the Torah. So as I researched my novel, the question
naturally arose -- how did Christianity transform from a community of
Torah-observant Jews into a Gentile religion that renounced the Law of Moses?

The answer to that question comes in the figure of one man whose vision of the
risen Christ changed the history of the world: the Apostle Paul. The story of
Paul's conversion from a persecutor of Christianity to its greatest champion is
famed in Church history and doctrine. On his way to arrest Christian fugitives
in Damascus, Paul claimed to have a direct personal vision of Christ (whom he
had never actually met during his lifetime). The Acts of the Apostles and Paul's
own letters differ in the exact details of this profound spiritual event, but
the end result was clear. Paul said that he had been given a direct revelation
of Christ's gospel and began to preach his understanding of Christ to Gentiles.
For Paul, Christ was more than a Jewish teacher and political leader, as the
Jerusalem community around James believed. Christ was a Divine Being who had
sacrificed his life to cleanse the world of sin. It is in Paul's letters that we
first find the doctrines of Christ's divinity and vicarious atonement (the
Gospels would be written later, when Paul's ideas had become prevalent among
Christians). Paul taught his followers that obedience to the ritual law of Moses
was no longer necessary -- indeed it was a "curse" (Galatians 3:10-13). All that
was needed to be a Christian was faith in Christ and his redemptive sacrifice.
These ideas have of course become the bedrock of modern Christianity. But what
is fascinating is that Paul's letters, the earliest Christian documents
(preceding even the Gospels by decades), reveal that Paul's vision of the Christ
was not the same as the Jesus known to his family and disciples.

The Jesus Movement (Jews who saw Jesus as their teacher and leader) was based in
Jerusalem at the time, while Paul was preaching to Gentiles throughout Asia
Minor (modern Turkey), apparently without any authority from the disciples to do
so. Indeed Paul proudly claims in his letters that he did not need anyone's
authority to preach and that his Gospel came directly from Christ himself
(Galatians 1:1).

Not surprisingly, his proclamation of speaking on behalf of Christ did not sit
well with the Jerusalem Christians who had known Jesus personally and could not
reconcile Paul's vision of the antinomian Christ with the Torah-observant rabbi
who had led them. According to Paul's Letter to the Galatians, James the Just
sent envoys to check up on him and what he was preaching (Galatians 2:12). And
when these envoys heard his doctrines, especially with regard to faith in Christ
removing the need for Christians to follow Jewish dietary laws, all hell broke
loose. As Paul himself describes the incident in Galatians, he had a shouting
match with Peter and other disciples, and was very much the odd man out
(Galatians 2:11-13)

Several of Paul's letters in the New Testament were written to respond to the
critiques of these Jewish Christians, who claimed Paul was misguided and perhaps
even lying about his encounter with Christ (see Galatians 1:20, 2 Corinthians
11:31, 1 Timothy 2:7 where Paul repeatedly insists that he is not lying, since
clearly this is a charge being regularly made against him). Indeed, the modern
Christian notion that Paul was on good terms with the disciples who had known
Jesus in his lifetime is simply not borne out in Paul's own letters. While the
Acts of the Apostles, written years later by Paul's followers, often portrays
the debates between James and Paul as cheerful disagreements between brothers,
Paul's own letters show that their differences were intense and volatile. It was
as if the two movements were actually competing religions rather than branches
of the same faith.

How Pauline Christianity Triumphed

But if Paul's vision of Christ had little support from the people who actually
knew Jesus, how did it become the basis for Christianity? The answer lies in the
tragedy of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The followers of Jesus
the man were centered around Jerusalem, while the followers of Christ the God
were scattered throughout the Roman Empire. The Jewish Christian community
suffered a major blow when their leader James the Just was murdered a in 62
C.E., and when the Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple a few
years later, the surviving Jewish Christians fled to Pella in modern Jordan.

The death of James and the destruction of Jerusalem crippled the Jesus Movement
and placed it dangerously close to extinction. According to 4th century
Christian historian Eusebius, the blood relatives of Jesus (the Desposyni) were
hunted down as political threats by the Roman Emperors Domitian and Trajan and
the people who had known and followed Jesus in his lifetime rapidly became an
endangered species.

Paul's Christ Movement, on the other hand, was phenomenally successfully.
Untouched by the destruction of Jerusalem, the Gentile based religion easily
eclipsed the struggling Jewish movement that had been its predecessor (and
competitor). Paul's vision of Christ the Divine Savior had many similarities to
popular religions of the Roman Empire, including the mystery schools of Egypt
and the cult of Mithras. The ideas of a Divine Man incarnating, dying and being
reborn, were already popular mystical doctrines in these communities, and it was
not hard to replace Mithras or Osiris with Christ. And the end result was that
over centuries, Paul's idiosyncratic view of Jesus became the orthodox Christian
line, simply because it survived and thrived.

Most Christian scholars would not dispute the basic outline of the history as I
have laid it out here. Understandably, their view would be that the "correct"
vision of Christianity survived, guided by God's hand through history. It is not
for me to dispute anyone's faith, and the reader must decide how to interpret
the meaning of these events themselves. I had already known the basics of this
historical framework when researching my novel. And as a Muslim, I was
interested in learning more about these Jewish Christians led by Christ's
brother James, as their vision of Jesus more closely fits my own.

And it was in the process of researching these Jewish Christians that I was
startled to discover that there was a consistent theme in their teachings. Along
with the belief that Jesus was God's servant and a human teacher, they had a
passionate commitment to vegetarianism.

That struck me as odd. Islam is not a vegetarian religion, and if I had been
looking for historical evidence to support my Muslim beliefs in the teachings of
the Jewish Christians, I certainly found these accounts quite jarring. But the
evidence is undeniable. One of the central themes that set Jewish Christian
groups apart from Pauline Christians was their belief that Jesus rejected animal
sacrifice and the consumption of meat.

The Ebionites and the Survival of Jewish Christianity

After the destruction of Jerusalem, the surviving Jewish Christians continued
under a variety of names according to early Church historians. The most common
name for these groups was the Ebionites, from the Hebrew word Evyonim, which
means "the poor." This is an apparent reference to the many sayings of Jesus
where he consistently honors and elevates the poor. ("Blessed are you who are
poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God" -- Luke 6:20). Other names for these
groups include Nazarenes and Elkasites. They seem to have developed some minor
theological distinctions among them -- some accepted the miraculous virgin birth
of Jesus (as Islam does) while denying it made him in any way divine, while
others said Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary.

According to Church historians like Iraneus (2nd century CE), Origen (3rd
century CE), Epiphanius and Eusebius (4th century CE), and Jerome (5th century
CE), Jewish Christian groups had their own Gospel originally written in Hebrew
(or possibly Aramaic, the language Jesus actually spoke). That in and of itself
is fascinating, since none of the canonical Gospels that became part of the New
Testament were written in Hebrew or Aramaic. They were written in Koine Greek,
the common language of the eastern Roman Empire (with regrets to Mel Gibson,
whose insistence in having the Roman soldiers and Pontius Pilate speak Latin was
one of the many historical inaccuracies in his Passion of the Christ).

So even for a Christian believer, there is the problem that the words of Jesus
as recorded in the canonical Gospels are translations from the language he
actually spoke. There is already a language barrier that separates us from the
historical Jesus. We do not today possess authentic gospels in Aramaic or
Hebrew, and so we can never know for sure if Christ's words were properly
translated into Greek, and the nuances and meanings of his mother tongue are
lost to history. And yet it is remarkable that Jewish Christians did possess
such gospels, originally written in the language of Christ, suggesting that
their link to the teachings of the historical Jesus is closer than those of
their rivals.

Based on their Gospel, the Ebionites rejected what was becoming mainstream
Christianity and denounced the letters of Paul as false teachings. The Ebionites
faithfully observed the Law of Moses, claiming that in doing so, they were
following the example not only of James, Peter and the disciples, but of Jesus
himself. And according to Epiphanius, the Ebionites were vegetarian, rejecting
animal sacrifice as immoral, claiming again that they were following the
teachings of Jesus himself.

In the Panarion, his epic treatise against heresy, Epiphanius gives us many
details about the Ebionite lifestyle. He says that the Ebionites claimed that
the Apostle Peter had been a vegetarian and had ordered his followers to abstain
from eating meat. In the Ebionite Gospel, they quote Jesus as saying "I came to
abolish sacrifices, and unless you cease from sacrificing, my anger will not
cease from you." The reference is to the practice of animal sacrifice in the
Jewish Temple, where thousands of animals were ritually slaughtered every year
as offerings to God, the meat being shared with the Priests.

The Ebionites claimed that Jesus was horrified by cruelty to animals and that
one of the primary aspects of his mission was to abolish the practice of ritual
slaughter. Their argument was that Temple sacrifices were an innovation and had
no basis in the authentic Law of Moses, and Jesus was sent to restore the Torah
as Moses had practiced it. To the extent that the Jewish scriptures appeared to
endorse animal sacrifice by the Priests (cf. the Book of Leviticus), they
claimed that such passages were forgeries inserted by the Priesthood itself to
promote its livelihood (the falsification of parts of the Bible would be a
central claim of Islam centuries later).

While we do not possess the full text of the Ebionite Gospel, which along with
other "heretical" books was banned by the Church in the 4th century, we do have
some Ebionite apocryphal writings such as the Clementine Homilies and the
Recognitions of Clement. These documents (known to scholars as the "pseudo-Clementines")
are Ebionite stories about the early Christians. They purport to be the writings
of Clement, the first bishop of Rome, ie -- the first Catholic Pope appointed by
Peter. (It is remarkable that the Ebionites believed Pope Clement was an
opponent of Paul, the man today credited as a founding leader of Christianity in
Rome!)

The Homilies and the Recognitions contain accounts of Peter's mission and his
disputes with a false teacher named "Simon Magus" who is misleading people about
Jesus (Simon Magus is clearly an Ebionite code-name for Paul). And in the
pseudo-Clementine literature, Peter is portrayed as a vegetarian who only eats
bread and olives, and avoids eating "dead flesh."

After having been confronted with this wealth of information about the Ebionites,
who have a strong historical claim to be a continuation of the Jewish movement
started by Jesus and subsequently led by James the Just, it became evident to me
that vegetarianism and compassionate treatment of animals was an important part
of early Christian thought.

Evidence of Ethical Vegetarianism in Mainstream Christianity

But a critic of this line of reasoning can rightly raise the fact that the
Ebionites were rejected as heretics by mainstream Christianity. So what if they
were vegetarians? They were wrong about everything else about Christ, they must
be wrong about that too. So I decided to see if there was evidence from
mainstream Christian sources that support vegetarian practices in the early
Christian community.

And to my surprise, I found them.

Hegesippus, a 2nd century orthodox Christian historian, wrote of James the Just,
the brother of Jesus:

"After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made
head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy
from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh,
never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed..."

There it was. James the Just, according to an early orthodox Christian, did not
eat meat. Nor did he drink alcohol. According to Epiphanius, the Ebionites also
rejected alcohol and used water for communion, further strengthening their claim
to be continuing the practice of James, who was the brother of Jesus and his
appointed successor. As biblical scholar Robert Eisenman points out in his
monumental work
James the Brother of Jesus, "Who and whatever James was, so was Jesus."

So if James really was a vegetarian, and James and Paul disagreed about the
proper understanding of Christ's teachings (especially with regard to what foods
a Christian should eat), then it should not be surprising if Paul had a problem
with vegetarianism. I went back to examine Paul's writings to see if he had any
opinions on vegetarians.

And remarkably, he did.

In Romans 14:1-2, Paul denigrates those Christians who "eat only vegetables"
saying that their "faith is weak." So it is clear that vegetarianism was common
among Christians in Paul's day, to the extent that he had to refute their claim
that refraining from meat was an act of piety. The fact that Paul has to make
this point means that ethical vegetarianism was being presented as a moral
requirement to be a Christian! And, as we have seen, Paul's vision of Christ was
opposed to rules and restrictions around food, to the extent that he found
himself in conflict with James and Peter on the subject.

Was The Crucifixion the Result of Christ's Opposition to Animal Sacrifice?

The evidence that Jesus was a vegetarian, or at least early Christians who knew
him were vegetarians, was compelling. But it seemed to be a minor doctrinal
point, with little historical significance.

And then I came across a remarkable book called
The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity
by Keith Akers, which posits a shocking thesis -- that the central event of the
Christian faith, the Crucifixion, was predicated upon Christ's willingness to
fight for animal rights.
Akers is a committed vegetarian and he makes no apologies for the fact that he
is evangelizing vegetarianism as a moral code for others. And some who read his
book might find his persistence on the subject annoying. Regardless, the book
truly makes compelling arguments that vegetarianism was intrinsic to Christ's
message of love and compassion for the world, and that gentleness toward animals
is a prominent theme in Christ's parables. Akers explains in greater depth the
historical processes that I have detailed above, and the book is valuable for
anyone who wishes to understand how the vision of Paul differed from that of
other early Christians, and why Paul's vision ultimately triumphed to become
Christian orthodoxy.

But for me, the most powerful argument that Akers makes is that Christ's
rejection of animal sacrifice brought him into direct conflict with the Temple
Priests, leading to Christ's arrest and trial under Pontius Pilate. Akers has
the remarkable ability to point out evidence in the biblical texts that is
hiding in plain site.

Most Christians would agree that the immediate event that led to Christ's arrest
under the charge of sedition was his confrontation at the Temple. The famous
scene where Jesus overturns the tables of the moneychangers is usually the focal
point of Christian tellings of the story. Christ's attack on Temple business
practices such as converting foreign exchange was seen as a threat to the
Sadducee Priests' power, thus resulting in their willingness to turn him over to
Pilate on the claim of fomenting rebellion against Rome.

And yet, as Akers points out, the moneychangers were a small part of the Temple
scene. It is unlikely that the Priests would have felt directly threatened by an
attack on unscrupulous traders overcharging pilgrims on exchange rates. But the
Gospel accounts actually list moneychangers as one of several groups that Jesus
drove out of the Temple -- and they are not the first in line.
"Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling
there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those
selling doves." (Matthew 21:12)

The primary reference is to those who were "buying and selling." What does that
mean? That means the huge business of animal sales for sacrifice! The Temple was
both a site of worship and a butcher shop. Jesus was disrupting the Temple's
primary revenue stream -- the trade of animals for ritual slaughter.

That Jesus was primarily concerned with animal sacrifice in the Temple is made
explicitly clear in the Gospel of John:

"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In
the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others
sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove
all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the
moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get
these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His
disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
(John 2:13-17)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus physically drives herds of animals out of the
Temple courtyard using a whip. It is an incredibly powerful visual image. Yet in
all the years of that I have listened to the story of Jesus at the Temple, I
have never heard anyone focus on this compelling scene. The overturning of the
currency tables seems to be what is stuck in the Christian consciousness, and
yet the most dramatic and chaotic event in this incident is clearly the freeing
of the animal herds.

As Akers argues, the direct attack on the Priests' principal source of
livelihood, the animal sacrifices, could not be ignored. The Priests had to
respond to the threat Jesus posed to their power, and they did. And the outcome
changed the course of history.

What Does This Mean For Us Today?

If we accept that Jesus of Nazareth, the divine Savior of Christianity and the
human Prophet of Islam, cared so deeply for animals that he would endanger his
own life to end cruelty against them, what does that mean for us today?
Neither mainstream Christianity nor mainstream Islam endorses vegetarianism as a
preferred lifestyle. But Akers makes a compelling argument that spiritual
vegetarians have always existed within the Christian community, and that their
voice of compassion toward animals is one that will never be silenced.

And Akers suggests convincingly that the Ebionites were ultimately absorbed into
Islam, which shared most of their views about Jesus. And their vegetarian
beliefs continued to influence Sufis, the mystics of Islam. Many Muslims would
be surprised to learn that Rabia al-Adawiyya, a beloved female Sufi saint, was a
vegetarian. And many Islamic legends around Jesus portray him as an ascetic who
avoided meat and was deeply concerned for the welfare of animals as well as
humans.

And so these teachings of Jesus continue to live on.

I think it is important to remember in a modern mechanized world, where animals
are slaughtered in horrific ways using cruel and monstrous machines, that we do
have a responsibility to other creatures on this earth. We have a duty to them,
to our Creator, and to our own humanity, to show animals mercy and compassion.
Watching beautiful little chicks ground alive by gears and blades should make us
question who we are and what being human means.
On a personal note, I do not plan to renounce the consumption of meat. But I now
have a preference to eat meat that has been slaughtered in as humane a way as
possible. In both Judaism and Islam, there are ancient rules of sacrifice meant
to lessen an animal's suffering and bring a quick and merciful death. Called
shechita in Jewish kosher laws and zabiha in Islam's halal rules, these
slaughter practices were developed in a primitive desert world where human
survival should have been the only concern. And yet these ancient nomads chose
to think about the welfare of animals, to feel empathy for the taking of their
lives for food, and to find ways to do so as mercifully as they could. The
barbaric practices of modern slaughterhouses violate the merciful traditions of
Judaism, Islam, and yes, Christianity, and the holy figures of our traditions
would undoubtedly reject such contemporary cruelties.

I would venture to guess that many Jews and Muslims living in the West today are
lax about eating only meat that is kosher or halal. I know that is true in my
own case. But after seeing some of the horrifying images from modern secular
slaughterhouses, perhaps it is time for all of us to look into our religious
histories and take seriously the traditions that emphasize mercy toward animals.

Maybe it is time to look back in order to move forward.

Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers,
a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha (Atria
Books; April 2009). For more information please visit: http://www.kamranpasha.coma>

Merlin7 08:40 AM on 9/05/2009

1) Pondering whether Jesus was a vegetarian is like wondering whether Robin
Hood wore blue tights or red tights. Both were mythical figures.

2) It's extremely unlikely that God or any god exists. How people can believe
such things in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is amazing --
and depressing evidence that humanity still has a way to go on the evolutionary
scale.

3. Treating religion as a legitimate belief system merely empowers those who
exploit the world's masses for their own benefit, fueling untold misery in
cruelty, oppression and wars.

kjstjohn 10:28 AM on 9/05/2009

One or more persons inspired a Jesus movement that, in turn, produced a body of
spiritual literature. This "one or more persons" existed in history. Kamran's
article (I think) is about the historical precursor(s) of the Jesus movement.
And of course, it is speculative but many people like myself find such
speculation interesting.

In addition to the historical figure(s) who gave rise to the Jesus movement,
there is also a mythical Jesus who certainly did not exist in history. Jesus was
resurrected in mythology. I can say with near certainty that Jesus was not
literally resurrected from the dead in the historical sense of those words.

It seems to me that there are degrees of nuance in the theological community
that do not yet exist in the popular literature of atheist community and that
the atheists are conflating historical "Jesus" with mythical "Jesus" and
pronouncing that the conflated entity does not exist.

wondering 09:20 PM on 9/05/2009

But why is the mythical Jesus more important than the mythical Harry Potter?
Can we expect Inquisitions and Crusades in the name of Potterianity?

The truth is, the bible (both old and "new") is a poorly-written
self-contradicting primitive yarn. Throw out the "miracles", and what is left?
Just two messages : the Golden Rule, and Love and Obey Yahweh. The first is an
entirely secular and universal tenet, which christianity did not invent and did
not add to. The second presupposes a divine being sitting in judgment of our
every thought and action - a childish belief.

You can twist it all you want with New-Age re-interpretations - it still smells.
How about this : Let's celebrate human beings. Our species is what matters, not
some pie-in-the-sky Santa-god.

Did that sound a little mean? Tough. It's long past time that you True Believers
stopped dragging our species down. Religion keeps us enslaved to the
supernatural. Can you not embrace the good in the world and work for its
betterment without invoking god?

Remember : a slave may learn to love his slave-master, but he is still a slave.

mwryan 12:17 AM on 9/13/2009

What is the overwhelming existence that no god exists? But first, a few
things. I am making no claim either way about the existence of god so don't try
the 'you can't prove he exists'. You made the claim, you back it up. Also,
unicorns and leprechauns are not the same as god. We have good reasons to assert
that the former do not exist (we would have found a carcass/ skeleton,
verifiable photographs, etc..), what is the EVIDENCE that god does not exist?

kjstjohn 06:11 AM on 9/05/2009

Thank you for this thought-provoking article. The fact is that nearly all the
great mystics have had ascetic bents. It would not surprise me if Jesus ate
little or no meat. If he had been a strict vegetarian as a matter of principal,
I would have expected to see more direct evidence of that in his philosophical
teachings. (He did, after all, admonish his disciples to eat what their hosts
served them.) But I can certainly envision a lifestyle for Jesus that was
typically meatless.

MoJo51 12:12 AM on 9/05/2009

Fascinating post, thanks. This makes perfect sense to me. I've read the book
How Jesus Became a Christian and am interested in the other branch of
Christianity (James etc) that was suppressed.

Queenhuh 07:35 PM on 9/04/2009

Jesus never existed. The question should be, why in 2009 are we still
enslaving torturing and murdering innocent life? Being pro-life should mean just
that. ALL life. Instead of referring to a religious figure/s who never existed
and asking what they would have done, ask instead what is right. It's as easy as
that.

hayness 04:43 PM on 9/04/2009

Jesus most likely never existed. If you did a little more research you would
discover that most likely Christianity is a mystery cult made up by Paul.

In any case, why do you need the so called authority of some holy person or god
to decide for yourself that factory farming of animals is unethical and harmful
to life on the planet? Think for yourself.

kjstjohn 05:57 AM on 9/05/2009

I am chuckling at this post. There is such a profound difference between the
voice of Jesus in the Synoptic gospels and the voice of Paul in his letters.
Pray tell, how did poor spiritually-benighted Paul (the one who dissed lazy
people, gays, women, cross-dressers, the sexually-immoral, and others) create
the spiritually-enlightenned Jesus who dissed the pious and the powerful?

Read Living Buddha, Living Christ. The parallels between the words of Jesus and
the words of Buddha are astounding. Paul does not even come close to either of
them. And many of Paul's teachings to his nascent churches are the exact
opposite of the teachings of Jesus.

I am sympathetic to everyone who rejects the divinity of Jesus. (I accept
Jesus's divinity but I also accept yours and mine.) But the view that Paul
created Jesus out of whole cloth (while not an absolute impossibility) seems
highly improbable. It would be something like me inventing Shakespeare. True,
Shakespeare may not be who we think he is. His name may not have even been
"Shakespeare." But I could not invent him because I am no Shakespeare. In the
same vein, Paul could not have invented Jesus because he was no Jesus.

Merlin7 08:32 AM on 9/05/2009

This comment is a good example of how religious "faith" is similar in many
ways to the delusions of the mentally ill. Notice how kjstjohn rejects out of
hand the prospect that her belief is a delusion and instead clings even tighter
to it, focusing in on the minute details of the tribal writings she thinks are
divinely inspired. This kind of thinking is quite evident in people who have
been brainwashed through religious indoctrination or subjection to coercive
stress as prisoners of war or even as crime victims. (Remember Patty Hearst's
"conversion" to the SLA gang?) Long-term therapy is needed to restore rational
thinking and emotional stability.

kjstjohn 10:17 AM on 9/05/2009

hayness, as I am guilty of the arrogance that I have laid at merlin's feet,
let me clarify that I do not think you have made a silly post. I was chuckling
because I belong to a church full of divinity school graduates who have, to a
large part, dismissed Paul as a moral authority because 1) he is often so out of
line with the teachings of Jesus as they are reported in the gospels and 2) he
is out of line with higher principles of humanism that are consistent with
Jesus' teachings, and 3) some of his teachings have produced great suffering for
many people.

minimalist syntax 07:26 AM on 9/06/2009

kjstjohn, I am looking forward to one time discussing the teachings and life
of St. Paul with you!

cucumber 03:19 PM on 9/04/2009

So why are you so attached to meat that you choose to end life - and no
matter how it's spun, the entirely of the life and ending is not humane - for a
taste preference?

odyssey58 10:06 AM on 9/05/2009

Maybe the best thing is to just eat plants that are already dead. That way,
you never have to take a life. Does anyone have any good recipes for fallen
leaves? Sticks would be ok, too, I guess.

wm1066 03:06 PM on 9/04/2009

He chased out the money changers because to make a sacrifice, as decreed by
Jewish Law ,you had to BUY the animal from the Temple Priests. They had the
monopoly on the market, you couldn't bring in your own sheep, you had to buy it
. And at this time in Jewish history alot of Jews were upset with the Temple
priests because they backed a King they felt wasn't Jewish. The Essenes were
also against the Temple Priests and refused to go to the Temple. So their are
many reasons for the fight at the Temple. But truely, thats what got him put on
a cross, the Temple ruckus.

But, thank you for the article, I have been interested in the Muslim perspective
of Jesus(Yeshua) for a long time. I have read that Muslims call Jesus Issa, and
that his mother was of the house of Aaron, which could have meant that he was
eligible to be a Temple Priest himself. He could have been King because he was
of the house of David and a Temple Priest. He WAS the Star of Bethleham.

marlovian 02:52 PM on 9/04/2009

I'm finding that this fascinating discussion is enhanced by a glass of
Lachryma Christi.

kwinter 03:20 PM on 9/04/2009

I prefer reds, myself ... but cheers to you!

nanderson65 01:26 PM on 9/04/2009

Thank you for the wonderful article on vegetarianism and the thoughtful
research into the life of the great mystic Jesus.
Mystics of all ages have been vegetarians.

If you read about their teachings you will see it is one of the most consistent
tenants of Mysticism.
Whether Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, or Christian all true mystics teach the same
message.

Union with the divine source through an internal practice as taught by an
enlightened Master.
Abstinence from meat, drink, drugs and a moral lifestyle are the foundation of
god realization.

You will see that it is easier to bring mystics of various religions together
than it is to bring adherents of the same religion from different sects
together.

The Mystics agree!
RS
Nathan

nanderson65 01:09 PM on 9/04/2009 26 Fans Wonderful article and
excellent research.
I am a vegetarian and a practicing mystic.
If you research the lives of the mystics you will see that they all point to a
vegetarian diet.

These are just the ones I am familiar with. In all ages the Mystic saints have
preached about an inner path and vegetarianism is central to this practice.
Eating of animals keeps the heart in a hardened state wherein grace cannot come.

I know the meat-eaters don't want to hear it and I was one as well. I just got
lucky...
Thanks again for a fascinating article and true research into unbiased sources.
RS
Nathan

rlugbill 12:29 PM on 9/04/2009

Jesus' brother, James the Just was a vegetarian from birth.

Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, quotes Hegesippus' account of James from the fifth
book of Hegesippus' lost Commentaries:

"After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made
head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy
from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh,
never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed."

Jesus was James' brother- even Paul refers to James as "the Lord's brother".
Presumably, Mary, the mother of both of them, would not have raised one child
vegetarian and the other on meat.

James was clearly the leader of the early church, as shown in Acts 15, where he
is the one who stands and renders the decision as to whether gentiles should be
permitted to worship with Jews. His decision requires that in order to
participate in the movement, the gentiles would have to abstain from impure
sexual practices and to eat kosher.

The Christians in Jerusalem (Ebionites) who actually knew Jesus were vegetarian.
Many early Christians even outside Jerusalem were also vegetarian, although this
was at least partly due to the fact that outside Jerusalem, meat was usually
sacrificied to pagan gods, so Christians did not want to eat meat sacrificed to
idols.

CTModerate 12:16 PM on 9/04/2009

I hate to break it to you, but there are numerous examples in the New
Testament of Jesus and his followers eating flesh.

Did you miss the passage were Jesus feeds a crowd from a few loaves and fishes?

How about when Jesus fills the nets of his disciples with fish?

I doubt that Christ routinely ate a big porterhouse, and he most likely never
ate pork because he was Jewish. But in all likelyhood he probably did eat lamb
on occasion, and seafood was probably part of his stable diet.

Pearl Lotus 12:41 PM on 9/04/2009

6.He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they
knew, they said, Six loaves and seven clusters of grapes. And he commanded them
to make all sit down by companies of fifty upon the grass. And they sat down in
ranks by hundreds and by fifties.
7. And when he had taken the six loaves and the seven clusters of grapes, he
looked up to heaven, and blessed and brake the loaves, and the grapes also and
gave them to his disciples to set before them and they divided them among them
all.
8. And they did all eat and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of
the fragments that were left. And they that did eat of the loaves and of the
fruit were about five thousand men, women and children, and he taught them many
things. .
http://reluctant-messenger.com/essene/gospel_3.htm#Lection290

"Did you miss the passage were Jesus feeds a crowd from a few loaves and
fishes?"

No he didn't miss that, if you had bothered to read the whole post, you would
have seen that this was addressed.

I'm not saying I agree with these ideas ...
I am not a believer in Jesus as a vegetarian, carnivore or omnivore. I'm
interested in why people have god beliefs, and how they justify, change and
conform their beliefs to the ideas and desires of the people who hold them.
... but at least I read the post (and found it quite interesting), before
jumping in blindly with comments.

You read Mr. Pasha's post the way I think the majority of Christians read their
bible, skimming it ... if bothering to read it at all.

kjstjohn 10:26 AM on 9/06/2009

LOL. The first time I read the Bible seriously was at age 40 and as a trained
attorney. Four pages into the text, I stopped and said, "Wait a minute, there
are two different chronologies here." I did a diagram of the orders of creation
in the first and second creation stories as saw (at least in the Revised
Standard version) that the orders of creation were inconsistent. I thought I
must have been seeing things so I researched it and, sure enough--two different
sequences in the order of creation.

Then I tried a legal exercise called "reconciliation" and what I got out of it
radical--namely, that man and woman were not created in the image of God until
after they ate from the tree of knowledge.

No one who reads the first four pages of the Bible can escape the conclusion
that Genesis was intended allegoric and symbolic, not historic--setting the tone
for the entire collection of Jewish texts.

1Davidr 11:37 AM on 9/04/200

I am a James the Just Christian. The vegetarian aspect of the article makes
total sense to me. After studying the Gospels of John and Matthew I have come to
similar conclusions as Kamran Pasha. I often was curious, if Islam was not a
creation in opposition to what I call the Hellenization (Greek Influence) of the
Christian faith.

There is a movement in the chiropractic community educating people on the
effects of food. Encouraging the consumption of raw fruits and vegetables only
and pointing out the unhealthy effects of animal fat. Doctors and drug companies
in general look for a medical cure for various diseases verses dietary changes.
This is changing to a small degree, some medical doctors are now supporting
dietary change with a low animal fat diet and more fruits and vegetables.

I believe Jesus is a prophet from God, when Jesus disrupted the activities of
the money changers selling animals in the temple it was a statement that the
whole process was wrong. Do I believe we do the same as the moneychangers today?
Yes in an entirely different fashion. Do I believe what Jesus did was right?
Yes!! One way God becomes glorified in my life is when I am not requiring an
animal, one of God’s creation to die for my desire. Another question I ask
myself, “Am I able to do this?” The answer is No, but I am working on it.

PlaceboStudman 10:01 AM on 9/04/2009

Hate to be the one to put damper on this whole thing, but the whole premise
of Jesus being a vegetarian or not is rather dependant on the existance of Jesus
to begin with, and my research has revealed that there is little to no chance
that Jesus existed as a living walking breathing human being. Where is the
archeological evidence? Clothes, the crypt where he's buried, bones, etc? Where
are the references to Jesus in writings outside of the bible? There aren't any.
You'd think someone who had such a prominent position in the world would be
known outside of The Christian world. But we have zero, nada, zilch evidence
that exists for the existance outside of the bible, and a few rogue gospels (The
Gnostic Gospels, the Gospels of Mary, the writings of Josephus) all of which
were intentionally ommitted from the bible as per order of the Council of Nicea

kwinter 11:54 AM on 9/04/2009

I agree with you about 92%.
I think the chances that there was a real man named Jesus, that the biblical
stories were loosely based on is about 16%.
But, keep in mind that 78% of all statistics are made up on the spot!

bannorhill 09:58 PM on 9/04/2009

Julius Caesar

Where are his clothes, the crypt where he's buried, bones, etc? Where are the
references to him in writings outside of the Roman history?

Cleopatra

Where are her clothes, the crypt where she's buried, bones, etc?

The same could be said of Socrates and most of the people of that era.

PlaceboStudman 12:02 AM on 9/05/2009

There are thousands of pages of documents relating to ancient Roman history,
written at the time of Caesar and the other emporers. Thousands of depictions of
Cleopatra from the time of her life in hyroglyphs and writings. Scientists have
and are studying the contents of the coffins of King Tutankhamen and Nefertiti,
with, yes bones in tact.

The earliest known writing referring to Jesus is a full 50 years after his
death. Absolutely nothing contemporary to his so-called life.

If the crypt where Jesus was buried and supposedly resurrected, then why did his
followers not turn it into a temple, the holiest of holy lands that would have
stood the test of time?

Liberal Angel 01:44 AM on 9/04/2009

I'm a Christian and I'm a carnivore. I don't think eating animals is any more
immoral than eating plants. Both are equally living beings. We can't say animals
have souls and plants don't. I have no problem with anyone who doesn't eat meat
because they don't like how animals are slaughtered, or just don't like the
taste. I do take issue with those that say it's wrong to eat meat. We evolved as
predators. We are a predatoryspecies reguardless of the level of technology we
have. I doubt Jesus was a vegetarian. I'm aware Ebionites were, but Jews
weren't. I believe Christ's Message was about people and our relationships with
God and each other only. If religious vegetarianism were important, I think the
proto-Orthodox Christians would have kept that as a tenet of the faith.

JohnFromCensornati 06:37 AM on 9/04/2009

Follow "We evolved as predators."

When did that evolution stop?

"I don't think eating animals is any more immoral than eating plants. Both are
equally living beings."

You really don't see the difference between a cow and a potato?
Is it "immoral" to eat humans?

kwinter 12:10 PM on 9/04/2009

"Is it "immoral" to eat humans?"

Not to Christians ... at least symbolically, eating flesh and drinking blood is
a weekly event!
Even when I was a believer, I could never quite wrap my head around that little
ritual.
No matter how it was explained, it sill sounded barbaric.

And, as for the potato ... potatoes have the evil eyes, and any slicing or
dicing is justifiable spudacide.